


Coyote, Spelled ‘T-R-O-U-B-L-E’

by keerawa



Category: Mercy Thompson Series - Patricia Briggs
Genre: Gen, POV First Person, Pre-Canon, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-20
Updated: 2010-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-13 21:23:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/141864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keerawa/pseuds/keerawa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Bran agreed to take in a young coyote, he never realized how much trouble she would be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coyote, Spelled ‘T-R-O-U-B-L-E’

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lyss (hydrangea)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hydrangea/gifts).



Leah’s hunting cry rings through the clear, cold air of the forest. The young wolves with me instinctively wheel as one and arrow towards the source of the call. My paws dig into the snow for better purchase as I bound ahead, leading them along the contours of the land, senses questing ahead for a hint of the prey that had caused Leah to pull us off a perfectly good buck.

A scent entices me as we circle west around a dense thicket. It’s a predator’s musk; not pack. Long-absent but achingly familiar. Coyote. Mercy.

I round the thicket and find Mercy cowering behind Samuel, who is growling and facing down Leah. The wolf within me bristles protectively, but it makes me want to laugh. Mercy’s been away for over a decade, and the moment she returns, there’s trouble. Of course. The girl’s always attracted it like bees to honey.

Twenty-seven years ago, Graham, Alpha of the Three Lakes pack had asked me to take in a young Walker. The pup was distantly related to a member of his pack. He’d thought it would be easy to raise her like one of his own. He was wrong.

* * *

  
I’d heard of Walkers in the past; even scented them on the trail. They’d been wide-spread when Samuel and I first journeyed to this continent. But like their wild coyote cousins, Walkers avoided werewolves, sticking close to their human tribes. I hadn’t considered them a threat, and assumed they were all wiped out in their messy war with the bloodsuckers. Apparently not.

I could see why Graham’s wolf felt compelled to help the girl – family is family, after all. But I didn’t understand why he thought that I should get involved.

“The kid, well, she don’t take too well to being told what to do,” Graham explained awkwardly. “And she smells funny. I had to order my wolves to keep their hands off. It’s stressing out the pack, and it’s not like Three Lakes is the best place for a little girl.” Graham had been moving up the ranks in the Vegas mafia before the attack that turned him, and his pack was more violent than most. “I get if you can’t take her, but in that case I’ll need to cut her loose.”

I knew the damage that a rogue werewolf could cause. That kind of damage had gotten harder and harder to cover up. And while I wasn’t sure of a Walker’s abilities, we couldn’t risk the exposure.

“If we bring the Walker in, and she turns out to be a problem,” Charles said as I considered, “we’ll be in a position to take care of it immediately.”

Graham shifted from one foot to another; uncomfortable at how easily Charles spoke of killing the girl. Charles has a well-cultivated reputation for ruthlessness. I use my own son like a hound of Annwn to terrify the lesser wolves. It works. We’ve had none of the bloody battles within and between packs that have decimated the werewolves of Europe. And Charles bears the price of the Marrok’s peace.

The child was tiny, dark-skinned, lithe and wary. Nothing like the chubby, happy toddlers I’d grown accustomed to seeing at community gatherings.

Graham introduced her to me. Mercedes kept her eyes averted, a perfect picture of submission. I spotted a yellow smudge of bruise on her jaw. I reached out to touch the bruise and she flinched away. The pup’s scent grew sharp, her fear nearly hidden beneath a wash of rage so red I was surprised that she wasn’t leaping for my throat. And yet she remained still, neck curved and eyes downcast as someone must have taught her a good little wolf should.

Interesting. As much as I might regret the harm we had caused the child to teach her such self-control so young, I was already considering how she might benefit the pack.

Bryan was among the most reliable of my wolves, a gifted wood-worker and patient hunter. He had recently lost his only son. The two of them had nearly come to blows over the boy’s decision to join the Marines before he had died to a war in a foreign land. The flag that had draped the casket was displayed on the wall of their home. Bryan’s mate stared at it, dry-eyed, for hours a day. She didn’t work. Barely ate or slept. Bryan was unsettled, torn between his mate’s despair and the call of the pack.

I could put the new pup to suck at the teat of the ewe who’d lost her lamb, and see if a motherly instinct could rouse Bryan’s mate to rejoin the living. I was pleased to find such a solution to the problem the Walker posed. It’s rare, in my experience, for kindness and practicality to march together.

“Mercedes Athena Thompson,” I said, calling upon the pup with a voice to coax birds atremble on the wing. She looked up at me, surprised. “Welcome to Aspen Creek,” I told her. The little girl smiled shyly.

* * *

  
Mercedes was orphaned at the age of fourteen. Bryan’s mate attempted the Change, and did not survive it. After her death, Bryan smelled of burning dust. He moved slowly, as if every step, every breath were a trial to be overcome. I wasn’t surprised to feel his death echo through the pack bonds. A note he’d left on his kitchen table asked me to look after Mercy for him. He’d not told her he planned to take his own life. I bespoke Samuel and Charles, telling them where to find Bryan’s body. Then I went to collect Mercy from school.

She was pleased to see me, at first. Apparently I’d pulled her out of class just in time to avoid a math test. But Mercy was a keen judge of body language, and as I motioned her to sit down I saw the girl settle into stillness, preparing herself for the blow.

She took it well. Quietly, but well. Mercy asked a few questions, which I did my best to answer. “We’ll take care of all the arrangements for Bryan’s body, of course. He was pack.”

“He was my father,” she said sharply, glaring at me for a moment.

I nodded, coolly holding her gaze until she dropped her eyes.

We are wolves. We grieve, as we hunt, together. But Mercy stood apart at the funeral, silent and proud, not reaching for comfort. She watched as his ashes were tilled into the community garden. Then she stripped off her clothes and went coyote without a word, slipping into the woods.

I don’t think Mercy would have returned, were it not for Samuel.

Samuel had always been much taken with the young Walker. He was Mercy’s big brother, her protector, her confidant. His wolf often appeared at her side for school recess, playing like a puppy with the children just to make her smile. Samuel followed Mercy into the woods after the funeral and brought her back to us a week later. She moved back into her room in Bryan’s home and asked Carl for some hours at the motel, so she could pay rent to Kailas, who had claimed the house by pack-right.

More than once I found her sitting with Samuel by the lake, Mercy scrubbing away the tears that she would not show another living soul.

* * *

  
My Porshe 930 Turbo was a steel-grey convertible capable of accelerating from 0-60 in 4.9 seconds. It was a ridiculous extravagance, but Samuel had encouraged my purchase of the vehicle as a symbol of status and power that would impress the human side of even my most cantankerous Alphas’ psyche. Driving that car at night, at speed, through Montana back roads with the top down was the only joy I’d found to rival that of the hunt.

Mercy obtained her learner’s permit from the DMV in Troy a few months after Bryan’s death, and she immediately started sniffing around my car. Mercy had raised a teenager’s normal contrariness to an art form. Bryan had always coped with grace and humor. With him gone, I had become her guardian. But her response to my authority was … inconsistent. I was seized by a sudden curiosity when I caught Mercy eying the Porshe, and snarled, “Don’t touch my car,” at her with the full force of an Alpha’s command. Kailas, who had been passing by the back bumper, leapt away and prostrated himself on the ground with a whine.

Mercy dropped to her knees. “Yes, Bran,” she murmured, and scuttled away. I comforted Kailas that he hadn’t done anything wrong, then shifted and settled behind some branches, down-wind of the car, to see what would happen.

I didn’t have to wait for long. Within ten minutes I heard the soft crunch of footsteps on snow and the rattle of keys. I crept into view and watched as Mercy adjusted the seat and mirrors to her height and snapped the seatbelt into place. The engine purred to life and Mercy pulled onto the road. I winced at the quick grind of gears as she sped off and loped down the road after her, contemplating the best way to reveal my knowledge of Mercy’s joyride. The road was slick beneath my paws and I was wondering if perhaps my little experiment had been ill-timed when I heard a terrible squeal of brakes. There was a crash, tearing metal and broken wood.

I sent out a call for help and raced ahead, cutting through the woods towards the sharp right turn Mercy had missed. I smelled the accident before I saw it, oil and blood on the wind. Mercy’s blood. The car was down the side of the hill, smashed into a great tree like a child’s toy. Mercy was inside, slumped broken over the steering wheel. I’d always told her curiosity could kill a coyote as well as a cat, but I’d assumed it would be her own inquisitive nature that would put her at risk. Not my stupid impulse goading her into reckless action.

I felt my wolf’s grief building to a howl. The little coyote had crept past all our defenses, had claimed a place in our heart, and now she was gone. Mercy was young. I thought we’d have years to know each other and I didn’t - I didn’t _want_ her dead. I finished my run with a jump onto the car’s mangled hood. The impact shook the car, jerking Mercy roughly against the restraint of the seatbelt. She gasped.

Alive. Mercy was alive. She raised her head groggily, caught sight of me and froze. Her face was covered in blood. I resisted the urge to smash through what remained of the windscreen to lick her clean and check her wounds. Samuel was close. He would look after her. I leapt away and fled into the woods, holding onto the shattered remnants of my self-control.

The next day, Samuel urged me to forbid Mercy to drive until she turned 18. “It’s a fitting punishment,” he said. I could scent it on him, the same frantic need to protect her that I felt beating away in my own heart.

“As if that would work,” I scoffed lightly. My poorly planned experiment had certainly proven that.

“It would, Da,” Samuel insisted. “The accident, it scared her. Mercy keeps saying she needs to get back on the horse, but she’d be glad of the excuse not to.”

“Bryan asked me to watch over her,” I told him. “He’d not thank us for raising his daughter to run from her fears.”

I assigned Charles to teach Mercy to drive cars, to check that they were in good condition and repair them if they weren’t. By the end of the summer, Mercy was as safe in a car as it was possible for a fragile human to be. And still, every time I saw her behind the wheel, I ached with the need to drag her to safety.

* * *

  
As she matured, the love Mercy felt for Samuel grew to a warmer desire. That wasn’t unexpected, and Samuel had plenty of practice, over the years, at deflecting young females’ crushes.

It was nearly too late when I realized that Samuel was encouraging her. They were sharing a blanket in a clearing, under the stars. Mercy was pulled into the curve of his body, and Samuel’s smile in the moment before he scented me was satisfied and proprietary. Man and wolf, Samuel wanted children, and he thought that Mercy could give them to him. Perhaps she could. But it was a disaster in the making.

I knew Samuel. Knew that he would care for Mercy, wrap her up, love her tenderly and protect her from the world. It was his nature. Mercy would submit to such treatment for just so long, and then she would fight with all the desperation of a trapped animal. Samuel was … fragile, in ways that no one else seemed to recognize. He was treading on rotten ice, all uncaring. I could hear it creak beneath his paws. Mercy’s rejection would be enough to send him crashing down into the dark.

So, to save my son, I sent Mercy away. And to be certain she stayed, I told her that Samuel wasn’t interested in romancing her, but in breeding children on her. The look on Mercy’s face when she tasted the truth of my words remained with me long after she was gone.

* * *

  
Mercy humbles herself at my feet, supine in a posture that communicates pure submission – and yet, Mercy being Mercy, there is an overtone of, ‘ _and you can go fuck yourself if you believe it_.’

I have all of an Alpha wolf’s instincts. The urge to dominate and protect lesser wolves is a compulsion that I’ve learned to temper over the years. But to come across Mercy unexpectedly, like this, makes my wolf tremble with excitement. She is mine. Not mine in the way that every wolf in North America is mine, bound by ties of pack magic. Not mine in the way that the human population of Aspen Creek is mine, through the bonds of fealty and noblesse oblige.

Mercy is mine because … because I like her. She challenges me, riles me, makes me laugh. I’ve learned over the years not to let humans too close. They die after only a few years, and the power of my own grief is too frightening when I love fully and freely. Mercy has none of a wolf’s strength or our healing. She will live and age and die as a human does. She is not pack. And yet I’ve missed her. My wolf lives in the moment, and in this moment we experience joy. Our Mercy is close enough to smell, to touch, to taste. Mercy is home safe.

I have complete control over my wolf. But I know when to indulge myself, and my wolf and I are in complete agreement as we lean down to nip at Mercy’s muzzle, and welcome her home.


End file.
